Either I am using the mining tools wrong or it is a pain in the ass to carve out sections

I am playing on the the desert world and I like to build on I guess the foothills and a lot of the time I end up making it flush with the mountain side and get rid of the extra rock but mining it with the tools is so tilt worthy. You end up getting the single block layer screwing everything up and getting the people to remove it is even more annoying. I am not sure if I am just not doing it right or something.

the AI still has problems mining and placing things in a variety of situations

http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/r572x64-hearthlings-refuse-to-mine-things/23802/2